


A Missing Chaser, A Map & An Invisibility Cloak

by theonewhereshewrites



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Light Swearing, jily, probably out of character, sirius black is overdramatic, sorry im trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 10:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16173674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonewhereshewrites/pseuds/theonewhereshewrites
Summary: If there was anything about Sirius Black that was for certain, it was that he always had something to say. Especially when James starts disappearing at odd hours, lurking about the castle without telling anyone, and missing Quidditch practice. But when Sirius finds out where James had been disappearing to, he couldn't remember a time in his life that he had ever been quite so speechless, and it was all because of a redhead.





	A Missing Chaser, A Map & An Invisibility Cloak

**Author's Note:**

> So basically this is James & Lily dating without telling anyone & Sirius and the rest of the Marauders finding out. Sorry if this is slightly out of character, please let me know if there's anything that's really weird and I'll see if I can fix it! 
> 
> Thanks!

If there was one thing about Sirius Black that was for certain, it was that he always had something to say. Whether it was interjecting his opinions in class, or throwing biting comments towards the Slytherins, he was never at a loss for words, that was for sure. In fact, he was so rarely speechless, that he could remember only three times in his seventeen years of life that he had been speechless. The first, had been on his first night in the castle at eleven years old, when the sorting hat had placed him in Gryffindor, and not Slytherin. The second, had been when he had spotted his younger brother, on the Marauder’s Map, lurking about the dungeons at half three in the morning with none other than Severus Snape. But the final time in his life that he could remember ever being speechless, and the time that he was quite possible the most speechless any human being had ever been, happened in his final year at Hogwarts on a cold morning in Scotland.

It started in October, or at least that’s what they had gathered by the timeline of James’ odd behaviour. You see, James had been Head Boy for a matter of six weeks, and so far, not much had changed. Sure, he was showing up to lessons more, and he wasn’t mucking about in the corridors quite as much as he had in fifth and sixth year. But all in all, James’ new position hadn’t changed things among the Marauders much.

Not that they had expected it to, Moony was already a Prefect. But they had wondered slightly just how much James would change his behaviour to stay in the good books of one Lily Evans. Sure, he claimed he was over her, and sure, he claimed that he wanted nothing more than to be friends with the girl. But they had known James for seven years, and they knew when he was lying.

It was the second week of October, however, that James began to behave rather erratically. Or at least, that was the earliest display of said erratic behaviour that Sirius could pinpoint. It was a Saturday morning, just past nine, and there Sirius was, standing in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch, dressed in full gear, surrounded by the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, sans the captain himself. Now, for anyone else, this may not have counted as erratic behaviour. But for James, it was borderline insanity. For James, it meant he was mortally injured if he was missing practice. The boy ate, slept, and breathed Quidditch.

At first, Sirius had told the team that he was probably just running late, that perhaps he had had a late start. But Sirius knew James, and James woke up every morning at the crack of dawn, much to their entire dorm’s annoyance, and James was _never_ late for Quidditch.

Then, it was that perhaps he had forgotten about practice, but this was more ridiculous than the idea of James waking up late. James didn’t just forget about Quidditch. He made the bloody schedule for Merlin’s sake.

By the time a half an hour had gone by, the team had decided to call it quits and began making their way back up to the castle. There was no point in having practice without a captain, after all.

The team hadn’t thought that James not showing up to practice was that big of a deal, despite the fact that in five years of playing on the Gryffindor team, he hadn’t once missed or shown up late to a practice, and that included that time in fifth year that he had been hospitalized with a broken arm. Sirius, however, thought otherwise. _James Potter, miss Quidditch? He had to be dead, or at the very least, gravely injured._

And so, ten minutes later, as Sirius burst into the seventh-year boys dormitory and begun changing out of his Quidditch robes, he gave Remus one of the most worried glances he had ever given anyone before.

“Moony, I’m seriously worried about James, I think something serious must have happened to him,” Sirius voiced his opinions aloud as he stripped his practice jersey off of his torso and pulled a muggle rockband t-shirt on instead. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at Quidditch practice for at least another two hours?” Remus asked from behind his Ancient Runes textbook, taking note that Sirius hadn’t even attempted to make a serious-Sirius pun at his last sentence. 

“That’s why I’m worried! James didn’t show up!” the black-haired boy wailed, a worry line appearing in his forehead. Remus, however, didn’t seem to think it was such a big deal, as he shrugged nonchalantly and gave Sirius a look as if saying, ‘so?’ “Moony, it’s James! Missing Quidditch!”

“I’m sure he just forgot about practice, Padfoot,” the blonde assured his friend, though he had to agree with Sirius that James missing practice was rather odd. 

“We’re talking about James Potter here, Moony! He literally has never missed Quidditch practice!” Sirius argued, flailing his arms about as he paced the dorm with a worried look on his face.

“Sirius, stop being so over dramatic,” Remus instructed, rolling his eyes at his friend. “I agree, it’s odd for James to miss Quidditch practice, but I highly doubt it’s anything to be worried about. He probably just slept in.”

“Okay, but when was the last time you saw him?” Sirius questioned as he begun digging through the trunk at the foot of his bed. “Because I haven’t seen him since he and Evans got in that row at dinner last night and they both stormed off,” Sirius continued, knowing fully well that something was going on, and James hadn’t, in fact, just slept in.

“That was the last time I saw him too, but just give the lad a couple of hours before you start a bloody search party,” Remus told his friend, opening his Ancient Runes textbook back up.

“Remus, I’m telling you, something’s up,” Sirius mumbled as he shut his trunk and begun digging through the trunk at the foot of Peter’s bed, and then Remus’. “Where the bloody hell is it?”

“Padfoot, what the bloody hell are you looking for?” Remus questioned as his eyes followed his frantic friend.

“The map! Where the bloody hell is the map!” Sirius shouted aloud, tearing through their belongings like a tornado. “Something is going on here, Moony! James is missing, the map is missing, and I’d be willing to bed ten galleons that the cloak is missing too!”

But Remus didn’t dignify Sirius with a response. He simply leaned back and opened his textbook back up, parchment spread around him. James would turn up eventually. He hadn’t just disappeared out of thin air.

It was hours later that James finally resurfaced, and it wasn’t until lunch that anyone so much as saw him in the castle. But as Sirius grilled him on his whereabouts, the raven-haired chaser did nothing but laugh at his best mate’s questioning with an odd smile on his face. Of course, it wasn’t until a few months later that Sirius found out what James was really doing that morning that he missed Quidditch practice, but by that afternoon, James’ behaviour had resorted back to normal, and the missed practice was forgotten about entirely.

It was three weeks later during the year’s first Hogsmeade trip that anything about James’ behaviour seemed amiss again. But this time, it was even stranger than James having missed Quidditch practice. Sirius had been rambling on for weeks about James missing practice, and how he was certain something was going on with their best friend. Though Remus and Peter seemed to think Sirius was going insane. They would simply look at him and laugh, with a sort of nod to his ramblings. After all, it had been three weeks since the missed practice, and his behaviour hadn’t seemed amiss since.

The boys had stayed up late in their dorm the night before, finalizing their plans for the Hogsmeade trip the next morning. Sirius had a date in the morning, and would therefore be at The Three Broomsticks until noon, likely snogging Emily Abbott in the back corner of the crowded pub, before he would meet the other three in the Shrieking Shack, their usual meeting place. From there, they would visit Zonko’s and load up on supplies to last until the next Hogsmeade visit, though they could sneak back into the village at any time if they really needed to. Then, they would all go back to The Three Broomsticks and drink firewhiskey and make plans for their next big prank, just as they had done on every Hogsmeade visit since they first went to the village in third year. Their plans had been finalized, and James had left the dormitory at two in the morning and made his way back to the Head’s dormitories under his invisibility cloak with plans to meet Remus and Peter in the entrance hall at ten sharp the following morning.

It was however, at precisely seventeen minutes after ten the following morning, that Remis and Peter begun to believe that perhaps Sirius had a point, and that James was in fact, acting strange. Not that James being late was all that unusual, he was late almost daily, whether it was to breakfast in the Great Hall, or to lessons. But when he was late, he almost always found a way to tell them so, and he wasn’t usually _this_ late.

Under normal circumstances, they would simply check the map, and then go find James wherever he was. But James had made a point of taking the map with him the night before, which again, was odd. James hardly ever used the map these days. This left Remus and Peter with no other options than to make their way to the Head's dormitories themselves and see what was keeping their friend for so long.

When they arrived however, they were met with an empty Head Boys’ dormitory, the bed still made, as if it hadn’t been slept in at all, and what looked like Lily’s room’s belongings thrown about the entire shared common room. Her duvet was off of her bed and spread across the floor in front of the fire, and her clothes were thrown about her bedroom haphazardly, and neither her, nor the Head Boy in question appeared to be around.

Confused, Remus and Peter made their way to Hogsmeade without James, and decided to wander towards The Three Broomsticks to see how Sirius’ date was going. Among entering the bar, they spotted Sirius in the back corner booth, mouth attached to Emily Abbott, and two empty bottles of butterbeer in front of them.

Just as they were about to take a seat, Remus spotted Lily Evans on the opposite side of the bar at a booth, entirely alone. Even stranger, it appeared as though she was talking to herself, and with two half-drunk butterbeers on the table in front of her.

“Morning Lily, how’s the first Hogsmeade visit been so far for you?” Remus asked as he approached, causing the redhead to jump violently at the sound of his voice.

“Remus, Peter, hi, sorry, didn’t see you there,” she apologized, clutching her chest. “It’s been good, and yours?”

“Good, we just got here actually. Are you with someone?” Remus asked, gesturing to the half-drunk butterbeer on the table.

“Oh, no, I’m not,” Lily answered, hands nervously tapping against the table as she spoke.

“Do you want some company?” Peter offered and took a step towards the table, to which Lily sprung up from her seat and started gesticulating violently.

“No no no!” Lily shouted, panic-stricken as she pushed the pair away from the table. “Sorry, sorry,” she apologized as she realized just how mental she must look. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy your company, I do, it’s just that I wanted to be by myself, and Marlene might be meeting me in a little while anyways.”

“Alright then,” Remus replied, despite the fact that he had asked Marlene if she wanted to join them in Hogsmeade and she had said she wasn’t going. Eyebrows pulled together in confusion at the odd behaviour, Remus glanced Lily over once more, noting how fidgety she seemed to be as she sat back down in the booth. “Listen, you haven’t seen James, have you? Because he was supposed to meet us in the entrance hall almost an hour ago, but he never showed up,” Remus questioned, growing slightly concerned for their missing friend.

“Potter? Why on earth would I have seen Potter? Ahhhh—“ Lily shouted, clutching her thigh in alarm.

“Are you alright Lil?” Remus asked, eyeing her suspiciously. She hadn’t called referred to James by his surname since sixth-year. 

“I’m just grand,” she responded, teeth gritted uncomfortably.

“Alright, well if you see James, would you tell him we’re looking for him?” Remus asked, and she nodded through clenched teeth as the two of them backed away from the table and made their way to an empty booth on the other side of the room.

“She’s acting rather odd,” Peter said once they ordered their drinks and took their seats.

“Everyone’s acting odd lately, Remus added, eyes darting across the room towards Lily with a pensive look, who appeared to be talking to herself again.

Of course, it wouldn’t be for another month that any of the boys would know why Lily had been acting so weird that morning, or where James had been when he hadn’t shown up to meet them that morning. Furthermore, they would find out why Lily’s things were spread all across their common room, just as Sirius would soon find out why James had missed Quidditch practice three weeks earlier. In fact, they would also find out why James had insisted on taking the map that night. In addition to the fact that they would learn that James’ bed hadn’t actually been slept in for three weeks. But for now, they simply sat on one side of The Three Broomsticks, in a booth, entirely unaware of the half-drunk bottle of butterbeer on Lily’s table, that every few minutes, would disappear, and reappear, a little more empty.

When James had resurfaced at the Shrieking Shack later that afternoon, at the same time that they were set to meet Sirius after his date, he had offered no explanation as to his whereabouts that morning. When asked, he had told them that he had slept in, as a result of having done Head’s paperwork when he returned to his dorm the previous night. of course, Remus and Peter knew that this was not the case, as they had been to James and Lily’s dorm earlier that morning, and his bed had been empty. But James didn’t know that, and they weren’t about to push the subject any further. 

It was over the next three weeks that all three of the boys began to grow extremely suspicious of James’ behaviour. He was disappearing at odd hours, and resurfacing with little to no explanation as to where he had been. He would fall asleep in the boys’ dormitory when he was there late at night, but if anyone woke up in the middle of the night, he would be gone. He was missing meals, missing classes, and was very rarely locatable at any hour of the night. His bed was almost never slept in, and if it was, his room looked as though it was not being lived in. On top of the fact that he never let the map out of his sight. It had reached such a point, that they almost never saw James without the map in his hands, and his invisibility cloak around his shoulders. As a result, the boys, particularly Sirius, were beginning to grow extremely worried. 

_‘It’s weird Remus! It’s like he’s not even James! He’s missed Quidditch practice twice! He shows up unannounced and leaves with no explanation. He missed meals and he’s impossible to find! Merlin, the only time I knew where he is, is when he’s on rounds with Evans, and that’s because he doesn’t take the bloody map on rounds!’ Sirius had said one night._

_‘James is starting to scare me. He’s perpetually smiling, and he hasn’t had detention in weeks. Not to mention he hasn’t so much as pulled a prank since Halloween! Yet somehow it’s like the bloody sun is shining out of his arse even though there’s no joy in his life whatsoever! The other night he left the map here, so I went to see where he had gone and he wasn’t even on the map! It was like he had just vanished!’ He had said another night._

Really, they should have figured out what was going on much sooner. They were smart lads, really. They had created a bloody map that tracked people’s movements, and yet they hadn’t figured out where James had been disappearing to. But perhaps they were looking at the situation a little too closely. Perhaps if they had looked from just a little bit further away, they would have figured it out.

Sirius was convinced there was some sort of conspiracy going on as to why James kept disappearing. Meanwhile Peter thought he had joined some sort of secret club and wasn’t telling anyone. Remus, on the other hand, had a theory as to where James was going, one that would explain exactly why he kept disappearing and why he took the map with him at all times. It would explain why Lily’s things were spread across the entire common room, and why James’ room looked as though it wasn’t being lived in. But he had absolutely no evidence, and didn’t really feel like being the one to break it to Sirius. 

They had asked Lily’s friends what they thought was going on, none of whom were any help at all. Alice and Mary just laughed and smiled. Meanwhile Marlene pretended like they weren’t even talking. Remus knew that they had to have some clue as to what was going on, and he was fairly certain that they would have agreed with his theory. But he was just going to leave it be, and let James tell them when he was ready. 

Of course, when they did find out, it was not because James had told them where he was going, nor was it that long after Sirius had been coming up with conspiracy theories. It was, however, the third and final time that anyone had ever seen Sirius Black speechless, and it was on a very cold morning in early December.

James had called an emergency Quidditch practice for that morning a few days earlier. This came as a direct result of their upcoming game against Slytherin, and the fact that their newest seeker hadn’t managed to catch the snitch once during practice. And so, there was the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team on the pitch, at six in the morning, in the middle of a snowstorm, and there wasn’t a single sign of their captain in sight.

“Okay, missing a normal practice twice for Potter is excusable, I suppose. Especially considering he’s got end of term assignments, Head Boy duties, and he’s captain, but it’s six in the bloody morning, we’re in the middle of a snowstorm, and he called this practice two days ago, so it’s not like he had time to forget. Where the bloody hell is Potter, Black?” Andrew Adams had asked through chattering teeth from the middle of the pitch.

“I don’t know, but I’m bloody well gonna find out,” Sirius deadpanned, and took off like a bolt of determination towards the castle. 

By the time he made it up to the seventh-year boys’ dormitory, he was practically fuming with anger. So much so, that when he entered the dorm and slammed the door behind him, he woke both Remus and Peter up.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” Peter asked, an air of grogginess about him as he wiped sleep out of his eyes.

“James bloody Potter and his erratic behaviour, that’s what! And I’m damn well gonna find out what’s going on. Where’s the bloody map?” Sirius hollered, tearing through his belongings in search of the piece of parchment. 

“I think James left it on Pete’s trunk last night by mistake,” Remus told him, and eyeing the parchment across the room, Sirius picked it up, and stormed back out of the dorm in a fury, Peter and Remus hot on his tail.

_“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,”_ Sirius said aloud, tapping his wand against the parchment.

Ink began to spread from the tip of his wand, across the parchment, until Sirius was holding a full map of the castle grounds, complete with the footsteps of every person on school grounds, and their whereabouts. Three pairs of feet, marked Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew were standing in the corridor right outside the Gryffindor common room, while the footsteps marked Marlene McKinnon, Mary MacDonald, and Alice Prewitt, were in the girls’ dormitory. Yet, as Sirius searched, he found no steps marked James Potter. 

Furious, with nowhere to go, Sirius began storming his way towards the Head’s dormitories, determined to figure out what was going on with his best friend. It was, however, in his state of rage, that Sirius did not notice that in addition to James’ footprints being missing from the map, so were Lily Evans’.

By the time the three seventeen year olds made it to the Head’s dormitories and Sirius muttered the password, _shrivelfig,_ the Marauder’s Map was folded up and forgotten about in Sirius’ pocket.

“What the bloody hell?” Sirius said aloud at the state of the Head’s common room and dorms, which they hadn’t been in for several weeks.

James’ bedroom door was wide open, though it was as clean as it would be if a house elf had just come in and tidied things. His bed was made, his desk in perfect condition, though his trunk looked to be nearly completely empty, housing only a few books, and an old Quidditch jumper. 

Lily’s room, on the other hand, looked like a complete disaster. Clothes were strewn about everywhere, her bed was stripped of all of it’s blankets, and all of her school books were spread across the table in front of their shared common room fireplace. Lamps were knocked over, the couch cushions were thrown about the room, and several paintings hung crooked on the walls. It was as if a tornado had passed through their dorm, and somehow, missed James’ room.

Confused, and eyeing the disaster that was Lily Evans things, something very out of character for Lily, Sirius made his way into her room, Remus and Peter in tow. Picking up a few items of clothing off of the floor, several of which appeared to be knickers, Sirius’ eyebrows shot up into his hairline. That’s when he noticed it, James’ Gryffindor Captain jersey, strewn about on the floor in a lump, the gold lettering that read Potter, sticking out like a sore thumb. Holding it up in confusion, Sirius’ eyes darted back towards the mess that was the common room, and that’s when he spotted it, a black lacy bra, sitting on the floor by the fire, several feet away from the pile of blankets. But why would Evans’ knickers be in the common room? 

It was then, that Remus heard the distinct sound of the portrait hole opening, and, acting like a bolt of lightning, forced Sirius, and Peter into James room, and behind the door. Footsteps followed, and then the sound of James’ and Lily’s voices travelled throughout the common room.  

“Okay, but how much longer are we going to keep running around like this James?” Lily asked, her voice teetering closer to infatuation than irritation.  

“Not much longer, I promise, Lil. It’s just, well the boys are gonna give us so much shite when they find out about us, is so bad that I just wanna keep us, between us a little longer?” James asked her, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her slightly closer to him.  

“I suppose not,” she smiled, allowing James to pull her into his body and wrap his arms around her shoulders. It was at this point, that Sirius’ eyes went wider than a deer in the headlights of a car. “But Merlin James, you’ve gotta stop blowing your friends off to see me. They’re getting suspicious. You saw Remus and Peter questioning me at The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. I looked like a right blighter sitting there talking to myself with two half drunk butterbeer’s,” 

“They’re clueless, Lil. Trust me,” James told her, kissing her on the cheek as she laughed.  

“Okay, but we should at least clean the common room up, Merlin, it looks like a disaster. My bloody knickers are all over the place and they know the dormitory password. What if they come in when we’re not here? It doesn’t take a genius to realize your room hasn’t been slept in for a month and a half.” Lily added, and it was at this, that Sirius burst into the common room with his mouth stuck half open.

“YOU!” He shouted, pointing to James. “AND YOU! He pointed at Lily. “WHEN DID— HOW DID— WHY DIDN’T— WHAT?” Sirius stammered, swivelling back and forth between James and Lily who had sprung about twenty feet apart.

As Remus and Peter crept out from behind the bedroom door sheepishly, the room fell into a full minute of utter silence, as James’ eyes darted back and forth from Sirius to Lily, and then back to Sirius. Remus smiled to himself lightly, know knowing that his suspicions had been correct, and then he laughed at Sirius, who for the third time in his life, was utterly speechless.

“Padfoot, Ah, Lily and I were just— uh— doing Head’s stuff,” James lied, earning an eye roll in response.

“And where, pray tell, were you doing these Head’s stuff that it didn’t show up on the you-know-what? Sirius asked, a sarcastic tone to his voice. “I may be oblivious most of the time Prongs, but I’m not a complete idiot,”

“We were— uh— we— uh—” James stammered, unable to come up with a sensible explanation. 

“Oh bloody hell Sirius, we were in the room of requirement, it doesn’t show up on the map!” Lily interjected, earning yet another wide-eyed look in response to her mentioning of the supposed-to-be-a-secret-map.

“YOU TOLD HER ABOUT THE MAP?” Sirius wailed, a great look of offence and betrayal on his face. “YOU MISS QUIDDITCH, YOU MISS PART OF HOGSMEADE, YOU DISAPPEAR AND REAPPEAR WITH NO EXPLANATION, AND YOU TOLD EVANS ABOUT THE BLOODY MAP?”

“Would this be a bad time for me to throw in that I know about Remus’ furry little problem, and that you three are illegal unregistered animagi?” Lily added meekly, sticking her hand in the air like they were in class. At this, the room fell into utter silence, from not only the three boys, but James too, as he did not know this last part.

Remus looked at Lily and took a few conscious steps back at the knowledge that she knew of his furry little problem, and the other three looked at Lily with various looks on their faces. Sirius looked angry, while Peter just looked confused, and James wore both an impressed look, and a confused look.

“How long have you known?” Remus asked, eyes shifting from Lily to James, as if unsure if he had told her or she had just figured it out.

“I suppose I’ve kind of known since fifth year, Snape used to ramble about it, and after watching the moon cycles, I was fairly certain. I didn’t figure it out for sure until I realized the three of you were unregistered animagi,” Lily added, turning towards James, Sirius and Peter. “James had left the map a few times and Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs had spent a good couple of nights insulting me. But the last full moon, when James snuck out, and I was too worried about him being gone to sleep, I finally figured out how to work the map. It showed you four on the grounds, and I knew Remus was a werewolf, so naturally I was worried, but when I looked out the tower window, that’s when I saw you on the grounds in your animagi forms, and then looked at the map, and put two and two together,” Lily admitted, eyes flickering between the boys and landing on Remus.

“And you’re not terrified to be around me? You didn’t run off and try to get me expelled _for the safety of the school_?” Remus asked, putting air quotes around the reasoning Snape had given when he had gone running to Dumbledore back in fifth year.

“Why the bloody hell would I do that? You’re one of my friends, I could never be scared of you, Remus,” she spoke to Remus directly, giving him a warm smile.

“I have one thing to say,” Sirius said finally, looking at Lily with an unreadable expression after seemingly recovering from his shouting match.”I CALL GODFATHER!”

It was on this morning, that everything suddenly made sense. They suddenly knew why James had been missing Quidditch practice, and why his bedroom looked un-lived in. They knew why Lily and James' common room looked like such a mess, and why he had been taking the map with him everywhere he went except on rounds. They knew where he had been disappearing to, and why he had missed part of Hogsmeade, and they knew why Lily had been acting so weird when they had run into her in Hogsmeade, and for the first time in a long time, the Gryffindor seventh-years, had never felt closer, Lily included.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think & let me know if there's anything really weird or strange. Also I am not from England, so sorry if the dialogue is kind of weird for anyone that is. 
> 
> Thanks!


End file.
